Council makes last-ditch bid to keep rail service running

Train passengers now enjoy majestic views of rain forests near Ohakune from the Hapuawhenua Viaduct. Picture / Greg Bowker

Ruapehu District Council is seeking a meeting with Finance Minister Michael Cullen within the next month in a last-ditch bid to save the Overlander rail service - at least until its centenary in 2009.

The council has written to every minister in a campaign to stave off Toll NZ's decision to shut down the passenger train, council spokesman Paul Wheatcroft said yesterday.

He said Mayor Sue Morris and council chief executive Chris Ryan planned to ask Dr Cullen for Government help to keep the Auckland to Wellington train going at least until 2009.

Mr Wheatcroft said the service was critical to North Island tourism, and provided a scenic alternative to air and road travel.

"When the announcement came out that they were going to close it, you had the media in Auckland saying, 'well it takes 12 hours to get to Wellington on the train'.

"If you're in Auckland and you want to be at a business meeting in Wellington, you're going to catch the plane aren't you?

"But if you're going to take the kids down to Te Papa you might want to take the train - through the King Country, and the Raurimu Spiral, across the viaduct. And [foreign] tourists think the same way."

Toll NZ has said the train had fewer than 50,000 passengers a year and the company had no option but to shut the service down.

But the council felt the service had been under-funded for years, and the Government had a duty to ensure the country could provide passenger rail services.

"We thought it showed a lack of imagination in terms of what could have been done. It comes back to a lack of political will at the end of the day."

A spokesman for Dr Cullen would not comment, but told NZPA officials were working with local mayors on various options.

The Overlander's final run, on September 30, is sold out.

- NZPA